SOPHiA GENETICS (SOPH) Risk Factors

We seek to ensure that all data and biological samples that we receive from our collaborators and customers have been collected from subjects or participants who have provided appropriate informed consent for purposes that extend to our development activities. We also strive to make sure such data and samples are provided to us in a subject de-identified manner. Our collaborators currently conduct clinical trials and clinical research studies in a number of different countries. The collection of data and samples in many different countries results in complex legal questions regarding the adequacy of informed consent and the status of genomic material under a large number of different legal systems. Therefore, we rely on our collaborators and customers to comply with the informed consent requirements and with applicable local law and international regulation. The subject's or participant's informed consent obtained in any particular country could be challenged in the future, and those could prove invalid, unlawful or otherwise inadequate for our purposes. Any findings against us, or our collaborators and customers, could deny us access to or force us to stop using some of our data and clinical samples, which would hinder our product development efforts, potentially involve us in costly and prolonged litigation, result in reputational harm and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

The laws and regulations governing the marketing of diagnostic products are evolving, extremely complex and in many instances, there are no significant regulatory or judicial interpretations of these laws and regulations. Pursuant to its authority under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the "FDCA"), the FDA has jurisdiction over medical devices, including in vitro diagnostics and, therefore, potentially our diagnostic products. Pursuant to the FDCA and its implementing regulations, the FDA regulates the research, testing, manufacturing, safety, labeling, storage, record keeping, premarket clearance or approval, marketing and promotion, and sales and distribution of medical devices in the United States to ensure that medical products distributed domestically are safe and effective for their intended uses. Although the FDA has asserted that it has authority to regulate the development and use of LDTs, such as our and many other laboratories' tests, as medical devices, it has generally exercised enforcement discretion and is not otherwise regulating most tests developed and performed within a single high-complexity CLIA-certified laboratory. The FDA could, at any time, change its policy with regard to this matter or the U.S. Congress could take action to amend the law to change the current regulatory framework for in vitro diagnostics and LDTs. We currently do not offer any diagnostic products in the United States. We believe that our research products, as utilized in clinical laboratories by our customers, are and would be considered LDTs and that as a result, the FDA does not require that they obtain regulatory clearances or approvals for the LDTs or their components pursuant to the FDA's current policies and guidance. Although we believe that our products and test components delivered to our customers, when validated as LDTs, are either exempt from FDA medical device regulations or are subject to an enforcement discretion policy, it is possible that the FDA would not agree with these determinations or that the FDA will change its regulations and policies such that our products become regulated as medical devices. In addition, changes in the current regulatory framework for diagnostic products and services can impose additional regulatory burdens on us. For example, the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health is currently considering a total product lifecycle-based regulatory framework for AI/ML technologies. On January 12, 2021, the FDA released its Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning-Based Software as a Medical Device Action Plan. As the regulatory framework evolves, we may incur substantial costs to ensure compliance with new or amended laws and regulations. Failure to comply with any of these laws and regulations could result in enforcement actions against us, damage to our reputation and loss of goodwill, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business. Our operations, therefore, are or may become subject to extensive regulation by the FDA in the United States, the EMA in the EU, the MHRA in the UK and in other jurisdictions in which we conduct business. Government regulations specific to medical devices are wide-ranging and govern, among other things: - test design, development, manufacture, and release;- laboratory and clinical testing, labeling, packaging, storage and distribution;- product safety and efficacy;- premarketing clearance or approval;- service operations;- record keeping;- product marketing, promotion and advertising, sales and distribution;- post-marketing surveillance, including reporting of deaths or serious injuries, recalls, correction and removals;- post-market approval studies; and - product import and export. The FDA, the EMA, the MHRA and U.S. state authorities have broad enforcement powers. Our failure to comply with applicable regulatory requirements could result in enforcement action by any such agency, which may include any of the following sanctions: - adverse publicity, warning letters, untitled letters, "it has come to our attention" letters, fines, injunctions, consent decrees and civil penalties;- repair, replacement, refunds, recall or seizure of our products;- operating restrictions, partial suspension or total shutdown of production;- denial of our requests for regulatory clearance or PMA of new products, new intended uses or modifications to existing products;- withdrawal of regulatory clearance or PMA that have already been granted; or - criminal prosecution. As discussed above, although we believe that our current line of products and their components, as utilized in clinical laboratories by our customers, are LDTs, subject to state licensing requirements and federal regulation by CMS under CLIA, it is possible that the FDA or comparable regulatory authorities would not agree with our determinations. If our products become subject to 510(k) or other similar FDA regulations, we would need to comply with the applicable regulations or face significant civil and criminal penalties. Exposure to these additional regulatory requirements would also affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Many of our employees, consultants and advisors are currently or were previously employed at universities, research institutes or other biotechnology or pharmaceutical companies, including our competitors or potential competitors. Although we try to ensure that our employees, consultants and advisors do not use the proprietary information or know-how of others in their work for us, we have in the past and may in the future be subject to claims that we or these individuals have used or disclosed intellectual property, including trade secrets or other proprietary information, of any such individual's current or former employer. Litigation may be necessary to defend against these claims. If we fail in defending any such claims, in addition to paying monetary damages, we may lose valuable intellectual property rights or personnel. Even if we are successful in defending against such claims, litigation could result in substantial costs and be a distraction to management. In addition, while it is our policy to require our employees and contractors who may be involved in the conception or development of intellectual property to execute agreements assigning such intellectual property to us, we may be unsuccessful in executing such an agreement with each party who, in fact, conceives or develops intellectual property that we regard as our own. The assignment of intellectual property rights may not be self-executing, or the assignment agreements may be breached, and we may be forced to bring claims against third parties, or defend claims that they may bring against us, to determine the ownership of what we regard as our intellectual property. Such claims could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

In addition to seeking patent protection for certain aspects of our technology, we also consider trade secrets, including confidential and unpatented know-how, important to the maintenance of our competitive position. We protect trade secrets and confidential and unpatented know-how, in part, by entering into non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements with parties who have access to such knowledge, such as our employees, corporate collaborators, outside scientific collaborators, contract research organizations or manufacturers, consultants, advisors and other third parties. We also enter into confidentiality and invention or patent assignment agreements with our employees and consultants that obligate them to maintain confidentiality and assign their inventions to us. We cannot guarantee that we have entered into such agreements with each party that may have or have had access to our trade secrets or proprietary technology and processes or that the assignment agreements that have been entered into are self-executing. Despite these efforts, any of these parties may breach the agreements and disclose our proprietary information, including our trade secrets, or claim ownership in intellectual property that we believe is owned by us. Monitoring unauthorized uses and disclosures of our intellectual property is difficult, and we do not know whether the steps we have taken to protect our intellectual property will be effective. In addition, we may not be able to obtain adequate remedies for such breaches. Enforcing a claim that a party illegally disclosed or misappropriated a trade secret is difficult, expensive and time-consuming, and the outcome is unpredictable. In addition, some courts in the United States and certain foreign jurisdictions are less willing or unwilling to protect trade secrets. Moreover, our competitors or other third parties may independently develop knowledge, methods and know-how equivalent to our trade secrets or seek to reverse-engineer our technology for which we do not have patent protection. If any of our trade secrets were to be lawfully obtained or independently developed by a competitor or other third parties, we would have no right to prevent them from using that technology or information to compete with us. If any of our trade secrets were to be disclosed to or independently developed by a competitor, our competitive position would be harmed. We are also subject both in the United States and outside the United States to various regulatory schemes regarding requests for the information we provide to regulatory authorities, which may include, in whole or in part, trade secrets or confidential commercial information. While we are likely to be notified in advance of any disclosure of such information and would likely object to such disclosure, there can be no assurance that our challenge to the request would be successful. Any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, and prospects.

Filing, prosecuting and defending patents in all countries and jurisdictions throughout the world would be prohibitively expensive, and our intellectual property rights in some countries outside the United States could be less extensive than those in the United States, assuming that rights are obtained in the United States. In-licensing patents covering our technology in all countries throughout the world may similarly be prohibitively expensive, if such opportunities are available at all. In addition, the laws of some foreign countries do not protect intellectual property rights to the same extent as federal and state laws in the United States, even in jurisdictions where we do pursue patent protection. Consequently, we may not be able to prevent third parties from practicing our inventions in all countries outside the United States, even in jurisdictions where we do pursue patent protection, or from selling or importing our technology in and into the United States or other jurisdictions. We generally apply for patents in those countries where we intend to make, have made, use or offer for sale our products or services and where we assess the risk of infringement to justify the cost of seeking patent protection. However, we may not seek protection in all countries where we will commercialize our products and services and we may not accurately predict all the countries where patent protection would ultimately be desirable. If we fail to timely file a patent application in any such country or major market, we may be precluded from doing so at a later date. Competitors may use our technology in jurisdictions where we do not pursue and obtain patent protection to develop their own assays and products and may export otherwise infringing assays and products to territories where we have patent protection, but where our ability to enforce our patent rights is not as strong as in the United States. These products and services may compete with technologies that we or our collaborators may develop, and our patents or other intellectual property rights may not be effective or sufficient to prevent such competition. The laws of some other countries do not protect intellectual property rights to the same extent as the laws of the United States. Patent protection must ultimately be sought on a country-by-country basis, which is an expensive and time-consuming process with uncertain outcomes. Accordingly, we may choose not to seek patent protection in certain countries, and we will not have the benefit of patent protection in such countries. In addition, the legal systems of some countries, particularly developing countries, do not favor the enforcement of patents and other intellectual property protection, particularly those relating to biopharmaceuticals or biotechnologies. As a result, many companies have encountered significant difficulties in protecting and defending intellectual property rights in certain jurisdictions outside the United States. Such issues may make it difficult for us to stop the infringement of our patents, if obtained, or the misappropriation or other violation of our other intellectual property rights. For example, many other countries, including countries in the EU, have compulsory licensing laws under which a patent owner must grant licenses to third parties. In addition, many countries limit the enforceability of patents against third parties, including government agencies or government contractors. In these countries, patents may provide limited or no benefit. In those countries, we and our licensors may have limited remedies if patents are infringed or if we or our licensors are compelled to grant a license to a third party, which could materially diminish the value of those patents and could limit our potential revenue opportunities. Accordingly, our and our licensors' efforts to enforce intellectual property rights around the world may be inadequate to obtain a significant commercial advantage from the intellectual property that we own or license. Furthermore, proceedings to enforce our patent rights in foreign jurisdictions could result in substantial costs and divert our efforts and attention from other aspects of our business, subject our patents to the risk of being invalidated or interpreted narrowly, subject our patent applications to the risk of not issuing or provoke third parties to assert claims against us. We may not prevail in any lawsuits that we initiate, and the damages or other remedies awarded to us, if any, may not be commercially meaningful, while the damages and other remedies we may be ordered to pay such third parties may be significant.

We currently have rights to intellectual property, through licenses from third parties, to identify and develop certain products, services and technology. Many pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies and academic institutions are competing with us and filing patent applications potentially relevant to our business. In order to avoid infringing these third-party patents, we may find it necessary or prudent to obtain licenses from such third-party intellectual property holders. However, we may be unable to secure such licenses or otherwise acquire or in-license any compositions, methods of use, processes or other intellectual property rights from third parties that we identify as necessary for our business. The licensing or acquisition of third-party intellectual property rights is a competitive area, and several more established companies may pursue strategies to license or acquire third-party intellectual property rights that we may consider attractive or necessary. These established companies may have a competitive advantage over us due to their size, capital resources and greater clinical development and commercialization capabilities. In addition, companies that perceive us to be a competitor may be unwilling to assign or license rights to us. We also may be unable to license or acquire third-party intellectual property rights on terms that would allow us to make an appropriate return on our investment or at all. If we are unable to successfully obtain rights to required third-party intellectual property rights or maintain the existing intellectual property rights we have, it could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

Obtaining and maintaining a patent portfolio entails significant expense, including periodic maintenance fees, renewal fees, annuity fees and various other governmental fees on patents and patent applications, which must be paid to the USPTO and various government patent agencies outside of the United States over the lifetime of our owned or licensed patents and applications. In certain circumstances, we rely on our licensing collaborators to pay these fees due to U.S. and non-U.S. patent agencies. The USPTO and various non-U.S. government agencies require compliance with several procedural, documentary, fee payment, and other similar provisions during the patent application process. We are also dependent on our licensors to take the necessary action to comply with these requirements with respect to our licensed intellectual property. We may or may not choose to pursue or maintain protection for particular intellectual property in our portfolio. If we choose to forgo patent protection or to allow a patent application or patent to lapse purposefully or inadvertently, our competitive position could suffer. Furthermore, we employ reputable law firms and other professionals to help us comply with the various procedural, documentary, fee payment and other similar provisions we are subject to and, in many cases, an inadvertent lapse can be cured by payment of a late fee or by other means in accordance with the applicable rules. There are situations, however, in which failure to make certain payments or noncompliance with certain requirements in the patent process can result in abandonment or lapse of a patent or patent application, resulting in a partial or complete loss of patent rights in the relevant jurisdiction. In such an event, our competitors might be able to enter the market, which would have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

Even though we actively file patent applications, we also rely on intellectual property rights licensed from third parties to protect our technology, including licenses that give us rights to third-party intellectual property that is necessary or useful for our business. For example, we are dependent on licenses from Normandie Valorisation for certain products we commercialize. If one or both of our license agreements with Normandie Valorisation were to terminate for any reason, we may be required to cease the manufacturing, marketing, selling and commercialization of certain products. For more information regarding these license agreements, please see "Item 10. Additional Information-C. Material Contracts." We also may license additional third-party intellectual property in the future. Our success will depend in part on the ability of our licensors to obtain, maintain, protect and enforce patent protection for our licensed intellectual property, in particular, those patents to which we have secured exclusive rights. These licenses, and other licenses we may enter into in the future, may not provide adequate rights to use such intellectual property and proprietary technologies in all relevant fields of use or in all territories in which we may wish to develop or commercialize technology, products and services in the future. In some cases, patent prosecution of our licensed technology is controlled by the licensor. Therefore, we cannot be certain that these patents and patent applications will be prepared, filed, prosecuted, and maintained in a manner consistent with the best interests of our business. For example, under our license agreements with Normandie Valorisation, Normandie Valorisation controls the prosecution, maintenance and defense of the patents licensed to us pursuant to the agreements. Our licensors may not successfully prosecute the patent applications licensed to us, by failing to draft or prosecute the patents and patent applications licensed to us in compliance with applicable laws and regulations, which may affect the validity and enforceability of such patents or any patents that may issue from such applications. Even if patents issue or are granted, our licensors may fail to maintain these patents, may determine not to pursue litigation against other companies that are infringing these patents, or may pursue litigation less aggressively than we would. Further, we may not obtain exclusive rights, which would allow for third parties to develop competing products. In addition, our licensors may have relied on third-party consultants or collaborators or on funds from third parties such that our licensors are not the sole and exclusive owners of the patents we in-licensed. If our licensors fail to obtain and maintain a patent or other protection for the proprietary intellectual property we license from such licensor, we could lose our rights to such intellectual property or the exclusivity of such rights, and our competitors could market competing technology using such intellectual property. In that event, we may be required to expend significant time and resources to develop or license replacement technology. If we are unable to do so, we or our collaborators may be unable to develop or commercialize the affected technology, which could adversely affect our competitive business position and harm our business prospects. Our existing license agreements impose, and we expect that future license agreements will impose, various development, commercialization, royalty, diligence, patent prosecution and enforcement, and other obligations on us. If we breach any of these obligations, we may be required to pay damages and the licensor may have the right to terminate the license, which could result in our being unable to commercialize related solutions, products or services that are covered by these agreements, which could materially adversely affect the value of any such technology and our business. In spite of our efforts, our licensors might conclude that we have breached our obligations under such license agreements, and might therefore terminate the license agreements. Termination of these agreements or reduction or elimination of our rights under these agreements may result in our having to negotiate new or reinstated agreements with less favorable terms, or cause us to lose our rights under these agreements, including our rights to important intellectual property or technology. In addition, while we cannot currently determine the amount of the royalty obligations we would be required to pay on sales of future products, if any, the amounts may be significant. The amount of our future royalty obligations will depend on the technology and intellectual property we use in the products and services that we successfully develop and commercialize, if any. Therefore, even if we successfully develop and commercialize products and services, we may be unable to achieve or maintain profitability. In addition, disputes may arise under our license agreements, including regarding the payment of the royalties or other payments due to licensors in connection with our exploitation of the rights we license from them. For example, licensors may contest the basis of royalties we retained and claim that we are obligated to make payments under a broader basis. In addition to the costs of any litigation we may face as a result, any legal action against us could increase our payment obligations under the respective agreement and require us to pay interest and potentially damages to such licensors. Disputes may arise regarding intellectual property subject to a license agreement, including those relating to: - the scope of rights, if any, granted under the license agreement and other interpretation-related issues;- the amounts of royalties due under the license agreement;- whether and the extent to which our technology and processes infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate intellectual property of the licensor that is not subject to the license agreement;- our diligence obligations under the license agreement and what activities satisfy those diligence obligations;- the sublicensing of patent and other rights under the license agreements;- the inventorship and ownership of inventions and know-how resulting from the creation or use of intellectual property by our licensors and by us and our collaborators; and - the priority of invention of patented technology. The agreements under which we currently license intellectual property or technology from third parties are complex, and certain provisions in such agreements may be susceptible to multiple interpretations. The resolution of any contract interpretation disagreement that may arise could narrow what we believe to be the scope of our rights to the relevant intellectual property or technology or increase what we believe to be our financial or other obligations under the relevant agreement. Such disputes may be costly to resolve and may divert management's attention away from day-to-day activities. If disputes over intellectual property that we have licensed from third parties prevent or impair our ability to maintain our licensing arrangements on acceptable terms, we or our collaborators may be unable to successfully develop and commercialize the affected technology, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

Our commercial success depends in part upon our ability to develop, manufacture, market and sell our products and services and use our proprietary technology without infringing, misappropriating or otherwise violating the patents or other intellectual property or proprietary rights of third parties. Litigation relating to infringement, misappropriation or other violations of patents and other intellectual property rights in the biotechnology industry is common, including patent infringement lawsuits, trade secret lawsuits, interferences, oppositions, and inter partes review, post-grant review and reexamination proceedings before the the USPTO, and corresponding international patent offices. In the future, we may be subject to third-party claims and similar adversarial proceedings or litigation regarding any infringement, misappropriation or other violation by us of patent or other intellectual property rights of third parties. If any such claim or proceeding is brought against us, our collaborators or our third-party service providers, our development, manufacturing, marketing, sales and other commercialization activities could be similarly adversely affected. Even if we believe third-party intellectual property claims are without merit, there is no assurance that a court would find in our favor on questions of infringement, validity, enforceability or priority. A court of competent jurisdiction could hold that third-party patents asserted against us are valid, enforceable and infringed, which could materially and adversely affect our ability to develop, manufacture, market, sell and commercialize any of our products or services. In order to successfully challenge the validity of any such U.S. patent in federal court, we would need to overcome a presumption of validity. As this burden is a high one requiring us to present clear and convincing evidence as to the invalidity of any such U.S. patent claim, there is no assurance that a court of competent jurisdiction would invalidate the claims of any such U.S. patent. If we are found to infringe any third party's patents or other intellectual property rights, and we are unsuccessful in demonstrating that such patents or other intellectual property are invalid or unenforceable, we could be required to obtain a license from such third party to continue developing, manufacturing, marketing, selling and commercializing our products and services. However, we may not be able to obtain any required license on commercially reasonable terms or at all. Even if we were able to obtain a license, it could be nonexclusive, which would give our competitors and other third parties access to the same technologies licensed to us, and it could require us to make substantial licensing, royalty and other payments. We also could be forced, including by court order, to cease developing, manufacturing, marketing, selling and commercializing the infringing product or technology. In addition, we could be found liable for significant monetary damages, including treble damages and attorneys' fees, if we are found to have willfully infringed a patent or other intellectual property right. Claims that we have misappropriated the confidential information or trade secrets of third parties could have a similar material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. The various markets in which we plan to operate are subject to frequent and extensive litigation regarding patents and other intellectual property rights. It is possible that one or more organizations will hold patent rights to which we will need a license. If those organizations refuse to grant us a license to such patent rights on reasonable terms, we may be unable to develop, manufacture, market, sell and commercialize products or services or perform research and development or other activities covered by these patents. Some claimants may have substantially greater resources than we do and may be able to sustain the costs of complex intellectual property litigation to a greater degree and for longer periods of time than we could. In addition, many companies in intellectual property-dependent industries, including the biotechnology industry, have employed intellectual property litigation as a means to gain an advantage over their competitors. Furthermore, patent holding companies that focus solely on extracting royalties and settlements by enforcing patent rights may target us. As the biotechnology industry expands and more patents are issued, and as we gain greater visibility and market exposure as a public company, the risk increases that our products, services and technology may be subject to intellectual property-related claims by third parties. Even if resolved in our favor, litigation or other legal proceedings relating to intellectual property claims may cause us to incur significant expenses and could distract our personnel from their normal responsibilities. In addition, intellectual property litigation, regardless of its outcome, may cause negative publicity, adversely impact prospective customers, cause product shipment delays or prohibit us from manufacturing, marketing, selling or otherwise commercializing our products, services and technology. Furthermore, because of the substantial amount of discovery required in connection with intellectual property litigation, there is a risk that our confidential information could be compromised by disclosure during this type of litigation. There could also be public announcements of the results of hearings, motions, or other interim proceedings or developments, and if securities analysts or investors perceive these results to be negative, it could have a material adverse effect on the price of our ordinary shares. Such litigation or proceedings could substantially increase our operating losses and reduce the resources available for development activities or any future sales, marketing or commercialization activities. We may not have sufficient financial or other resources to conduct such litigation or proceedings adequately. Uncertainties resulting from patent and other intellectual property litigation or other proceedings could have a material adverse effect on our ability to compete in the marketplace, our ability to raise additional funds, and could otherwise have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

Competitors and other third parties may infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate our patents and intellectual property rights or the patents and intellectual property rights of our licensors. The enforcement of such claims can be expensive and time-consuming. In an infringement proceeding, a court may decide that a patent owned or in-licensed by us is invalid or unenforceable or may refuse to stop the other party from using the technology at issue on the grounds that our owned and in-licensed patents do not cover the technology in question. An adverse result in any litigation proceeding could put one or more of our owned or in-licensed patents at risk of being invalidated or interpreted narrowly. In addition, our ability to enforce our patent or other intellectual property rights depends on our ability to detect infringement. It may be difficult to detect infringers who do not advertise the components or methods that are used in connection with their products and services. Moreover, it may be difficult or impossible to obtain evidence of infringement in a competitor's or potential competitor's product or service. If we were to initiate legal proceedings against any other third party to enforce a patent covering our technology, the defendant could assert that our patent is invalid or unenforceable. In patent litigation in the United States and Europe, defendants alleging invalidity or unenforceability are common in response to a claim of infringement. Grounds for a validity challenge could be an alleged failure to meet any of several statutory requirements, for example, lack of novelty, obviousness, overbreadth or lack of utility. Third parties might allege unenforceability of our patents because during prosecution of the patent an individual connected with such prosecution withheld relevant information or made a misleading statement. Third parties may also raise challenges to the validity of our patent claims before administrative bodies in the United States or abroad, even outside the context of litigation. Such mechanisms include reexamination, post-grant review, inter partes review, interference proceedings, derivation proceedings and equivalent proceedings in foreign jurisdictions (e.g., opposition proceedings). Such proceedings could result in the revocation of, cancellation of, or amendment to, our patents in such a way that they no longer cover our technology or products. The outcome of proceedings involving assertions of invalidity and unenforceability, including during patent litigation, is unpredictable. With respect to the validity of patents, for example, we cannot be certain that there is no invalidating prior art of which we and the patent examiner were unaware during prosecution, but that an adverse third party may identify and submit in support of such assertions of invalidity. If a defendant were to prevail on a legal assertion of invalidity or unenforceability, we would lose at least part, and perhaps all, of the patent protection on our technology. Such a loss of patent protection could have a material adverse effect on our business. Our patents and other intellectual property rights also will not protect our technology if competitors design around our protected technology without infringing our patents or other intellectual property rights. Even if resolved in our favor, litigation or other legal proceedings relating to intellectual property claims may cause us to incur significant expenses and could distract our personnel from their normal responsibilities. There can be no assurance that we will have sufficient financial or other resources to file and pursue infringement claims, which typically last for years before they are concluded. We may or may not choose to pursue litigation or other actions against those that have infringed on our patents, or have used them without authorization, due to the associated expense and time commitment of monitoring these activities. In addition, because of the substantial amount of discovery required in connection with intellectual property litigation, there is a risk that our confidential information could be compromised by disclosure during this type of litigation. There could also be public announcements of the results of hearings, motions, or other interim proceedings or developments, and if securities analysts or investors perceive these results to be negative, it could have a material adverse effect on the price of our ordinary shares. Such litigation or proceedings could substantially increase our operating losses and reduce the resources available for development activities or any future sales, marketing or commercialization activities. We may not have sufficient financial or other resources to conduct such litigation or proceedings adequately. Uncertainties resulting from patent and other intellectual property litigation or other proceedings could have a material adverse effect on our ability to compete in the marketplace, our ability to raise additional funds, and could otherwise have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

Our success depends in part on our ability to obtain, maintain, defend and enforce patents and other forms of intellectual property rights, including in-licenses of intellectual property rights of others, as well as our ability to preserve our trade secrets and to prevent third parties from infringing, misappropriating or otherwise violating our intellectual property and proprietary rights. Our ability to protect our products or services from unauthorized use by third parties depends on the extent to which valid and enforceable patents cover them or they are effectively protected as trade secrets. Although we have filed a number of patents, our patent portfolio is in an earlier stage of prosecution, and we own a limited number of issued patents related to our products and technology. For information regarding our patent portfolio, see "Item 4. Information on the Company-B. Business Overview-Intellectual Property." The patent position of biotechnology and information technology companies generally is highly uncertain, involves complex legal and factual questions, and has been the subject of much litigation in recent years. As a result, the issuance, scope, validity, enforceability, and commercial value of our patent rights are highly uncertain. There can be no assurance that our patent rights will not be invalidated or held to be unenforceable, will adequately protect our technology, products or services or provide any competitive advantage, or that any of our pending or future patent applications will issue as valid and enforceable patents. Our ability to obtain and maintain patent protection for our methods and related solutions, products or services is uncertain due to a number of factors, including that: - we or our licensors may not have been the first to invent the technology covered by our pending patent applications or issued patents;- we or our licensors may not be the first to file all patent applications, as patent applications in the United States and most other countries are confidential for a period of time after filing;- our methods and related solutions, products may not be patentable;- our disclosures in patent applications may not be sufficient to meet the statutory requirements for patentability;- any or all of our pending patent applications may not result in issued patents;- others may independently develop identical, similar or alternative technologies;- others may design around our patent claims to produce competitive technologies or methods or products that fall outside of the scope of our patents;- we may fail to identify patentable aspects of our research and development output before it is too late to obtain patent protection;- we may not seek or obtain patent protection in countries that may eventually provide us a significant business opportunity;- any patents issued to us may not provide a basis for commercially viable methods or products, may not provide any competitive advantages or may be successfully challenged by third parties;- a third party may challenge our patents in court and, upon such a challenge, a court may not hold that our patents are valid, enforceable and non-infringing;- a third party may challenge our patents in various patent offices and, if challenged, we may be compelled to limit the scope of our pending, allowed or granted claims or lose some or all of the pending, allowed or granted claims altogether;- the patents of others could harm our business; and - our competitors could conduct research and development activities in countries where we will not have enforceable patent rights and then use the information learned from such activities to develop competitive methods or products for sale in our major commercial markets. While we will endeavor to protect our technology with intellectual property rights such as patents, as appropriate, the process of obtaining patents is time-consuming, expensive and sometimes unpredictable, and we may not be able to file, prosecute, maintain, enforce, or license all necessary or desirable patent applications at a reasonable cost or in a timely manner. Although we enter into non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements with parties who have access to confidential or patentable aspects of our research and development output, such as our employees, corporate collaborators, outside scientific collaborators, contract research organizations or manufacturers, consultants, advisors and other third parties, any of these parties may breach the agreements and disclose such output before a patent application is filed, thereby jeopardizing our ability to seek patent protection. Furthermore, we cannot guarantee that any patents will be issued from any of our pending or future patent applications. The standards applied by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ("the USPTO") and foreign patent offices in granting patents are not always applied uniformly or predictably. For example, there is no uniform worldwide policy regarding patentable subject matter or the scope of claims allowable in biotechnology or information technology patents. Moreover, the coverage claimed in a patent application can be significantly reduced before the patent is issued, and its scope can be reinterpreted after issuance. As such, we do not know the degree of future protection that we will have on our proprietary products, services and technology. Thus, even if our patent applications issue as patents, they may not issue in a form that will provide us with meaningful protection, prevent competitors from competing with us or otherwise provide us with any competitive advantage. Even if we have or obtain patents, we may still be barred from making, using and selling such methods, products, or services because of the patent rights of others. Others may have filed, and in the future may file, patent applications covering compositions, products or methods that are similar or identical to ours, which could materially affect our ability to successfully develop our technology or to successfully commercialize any approved assays alone or with collaborators. Patent applications in the United States and elsewhere are generally published approximately 18 months after the earliest filing for which priority is claimed, with such earliest filing date being commonly referred to as the priority date. Therefore, patent applications could have been filed by others without our knowledge. Additionally, pending claims in patent applications which have been published can, subject to certain limitations, be later amended in a manner that could cover our platform technologies or related solutions, products and services. These patent applications may have priority over patent applications filed by us. The issuance of a patent is not conclusive as to its inventorship, scope, validity or enforceability, and our owned and licensed patents may be challenged in the courts or patent offices in the United States and abroad. We may be subject to third party pre-issuance submissions of prior art to the USPTO, or become involved in opposition, derivation, revocation, reexamination, post-grant and inter partes review, or interference proceedings challenging our patent rights. An adverse determination in any such submission, proceeding or litigation could reduce the scope of, or invalidate, our patent rights, allow third parties to commercialize our products, services and technology and compete directly with us, without payment to us, or result in our inability to manufacture or commercialize products or provide services without infringing third-party patent rights. Moreover, we, or our licensors, may have to participate in interference proceedings declared by the USPTO to determine priority of invention or in post-grant challenge proceedings, such as oppositions in a foreign patent office, that challenge priority of invention or other features of patentability. Such challenges may result in loss of patent rights, loss of exclusivity or freedom to operate or in patent claims being narrowed, invalidated or held unenforceable, in whole or in part, which could limit our ability to stop others from using or commercializing similar or identical products, services and technology, or limit the duration of the patent protection of our products, services and technology. Such proceedings also may result in substantial cost and require significant time from our employees and management, even if the eventual outcome is favorable to us. In addition, if the breadth or strength of protection provided by the patents and patent applications we own or in-license is threatened, it could dissuade companies from collaborating with us to license, develop or commercialize current or future technology. In addition, third parties may be able to develop technology that is similar to, or better than, ours in a way that is not covered by the claims of our patents or may have blocking patents that could prevent us from marketing our products or practicing our own patented technology. Moreover, patents have a limited lifespan. In the United States, the natural expiration of a patent is generally 20 years after it is filed and the life of a patent, and the protection it affords, is limited. Without patent protection for current or future methods and related solutions, products and services, we may face competing technology. Given the amount of time required for the development and testing, and regulatory review where necessary, patents protecting such technology might expire before or shortly after such technology is commercialized. At the same time, given the rapid pace of technological advancement and innovation in the information technology field, the time needed to obtain patents for novel information technology solutions often renders the protection, once obtained, ineffective if the protected solution has become obsolete or widely-adopted while the patent protection was pending. As a result, our patent portfolio may not provide us with sufficient rights to exclude others from commercializing technology similar or identical to that we or our collaborators may develop. Moreover, certain of our patents and patent applications may in the future be, co-owned with third parties. If we are unable to obtain an exclusive license to any such third party co-owners' interest in such patents or patent applications, such co-owners may be able to use or license their rights to other third parties, including our competitors, and our competitors could market competing products and technology. In addition, we may need the cooperation of any such co-owners of our patents in order to enforce such patents against third parties, and such cooperation may not be provided to us. Any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial conditions, results of operations, and prospects.

The degree of future protection afforded by our intellectual property rights is uncertain because intellectual property rights have limitations and may not adequately protect our business or permit us to maintain our competitive advantage. For example: - others may be able to make products or provide services that are similar to ours but that are not protected by our intellectual property;- we or our licensors might not have been the first to make the inventions covered by our patents;- we or our licensors might not have been the first to file patent applications covering certain of our or their inventions;- others may seek to file provisional applications in the United States, thereby securing an earlier priority date that would prevent us from securing intellectual property rights in the same market space;- others, including inventors or developers of our owned or in-licensed patented technologies who may become involved with competitors, may independently develop similar or alternative technologies or duplicate any of our technologies without infringing our intellectual property rights;- it is possible that our pending patent applications or those that we may own in the future will not lead to issued patents;- it is possible that there are prior public disclosures that could invalidate our or our licensors' patents;- issued patents for which we have rights may not provide us with any competitive advantage and may be held invalid or unenforceable, including as a result of legal challenges by our competitors or other third parties;- our competitors might conduct research and development activities in countries where we do not have patent rights or in countries where research and development safe harbor laws exist, and then use the information learned from such activities to develop competitive products and services in our commercial markets;- we may not develop additional proprietary technologies that are patentable;- the patents or pending or future applications of third parties, if issued, may harm our business; and - we or our licensors may choose not to file a patent in order to maintain certain trade secrets or know-how, and a third party may subsequently file a patent covering such intellectual property. Should any of these events occur, they could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

Our business requires sophisticated computer systems and software in order to accurately and efficiently capture, service and process increasing volumes of health data, in particular a growing number of genomic profiles generated by our customers through various NGS test kits, sequencers and sample materials from different manufacturers. Some of the technologies are changing rapidly and we must continue to adapt to these changes in a timely and effective manner at an acceptable cost. There can be no assurance that we will be able to develop, acquire, enhance, deploy or integrate new technologies, including technologies needed to integrate new genomics test kits into our data analytics platform, that these new technologies will be effective and efficient, will meet our needs or achieve our expected goals or that we will be able to do so as quickly or cost-effectively as our competitors. Significant technological change could render our data analytics platform and technologies obsolete and incompatible with new or improved genomics test kits. In addition, we may face challenges in expanding into markets without suitable cloud infrastructure compatible with our SOPHiA platform. Our continued success will depend on our ability to adapt to changing technologies, manage and process ever-increasing amounts of data and information and improve the performance features of our data analytics platform technologies in response to an ever-changing patient population. We may experience difficulties that could delay or prevent the successful design, development, testing and introduction of new versions of our data analytics platform technologies, limiting our ability to identify new solutions, products and services. Any of these challenges could have a material adverse effect on our operating results and financial condition.

We need to maintain and continuously improve the performance, security and reliability of our SOPHiA platform and related solutions, products and services. Our platform, solutions and other products may contain errors or defects, and while we have made efforts to test them and are not aware of any widespread material errors, defects or other performance-related issues, there can be no assurance that our platform, solutions, products and services do not or will not have performance problems. As we continue to launch more platform features, applications, data modalities, solutions, products and services, these risks may increase. Poor performance, security and reliability could adversely impact our customers and lead to customer dissatisfaction, adversely affect our reputation and revenues and increase our service, product care, and distribution costs and working capital requirements.

Our SOPHiA platform offers a broad range of genomics applications across oncology, rare diseases, infectious diseases, cardiology, neurology, metabolism and other disease areas. A major part of our long-term strategy is bringing new high-impact content to our customers through updates to our platform, which may include expanding our platform with additional features, applications and data modalities and related solutions, products and services. We expect to make significant investments to advance these efforts. Enhancing our platform and developing new related solutions, products and services is a speculative and risky endeavor. Features, applications, data modalities and services that initially show promise may fail to achieve the desired results or may not achieve acceptable levels of analytical accuracy or utility. We may need to alter our platform, solutions, products or services in development and repeat studies before we identify a potentially successful feature, application, data modality, product or service. Platform, solution, service and product development is expensive, may take years to complete and can have uncertain outcomes. Failure can occur at any stage of the development. Even if we confirm that our platform can be successfully employed for additional features, applications and data modalities, those features, applications and data modalities may be limited in scope to only some diseases, disease segments, patient markets or geographies. If, after development, a new feature, application, data modality, solution, service or product appears successful, we or our collaborators may, depending on the nature of the feature, application, data modality, service or product, need to obtain U.S. Food and Drug Administration (the "FDA"), European Medicines Agency (the "EMA"), United Kingdom (the "UK") Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (the "MHRA") and other regulatory clearances, authorizations or approvals before we can market the feature, application, data modality, solution, service or product. The FDA's, EMA's and MHRA's clearance, authorization or approval pathways are likely to require significant time and expenditures. The FDA, EMA, MHRA or other applicable regulatory authority may not clear, authorize or approve any feature, application, data modality, solution, service or product we develop. Even if we develop a feature, application, data modality, solution, service or product that receives regulatory clearance, authorization or approval, we or our collaborators would need to commit substantial resources to commercialize, sell and market the feature, application, data modality, solution, service or product and the feature, application, data modality, solution, service or product may never achieve significant market acceptance among various stakeholders and be commercially successful. Furthermore, we purposefully built our SOPHiA platform in a decentralized manner and strategically positioned it as a "universal operating-system" for multiomics and multimodal data analytics in order to provide for a broad range of product and service expansion opportunities. However, certain jurisdictions, such as the Netherlands, have implemented centralized services architectures for electronic healthcare records ("EHR") where all patient data passes through a single, often government-run, entity rather than being shared directly between the healthcare providers. Such centralized systems, if widely implemented, may limit the development of our platform in a decentralized manner across different data modalities. Any of the foregoing could adversely affect our business, revenue growth and results of operations. In addition, we generally sell our platform, solutions, products and services in industries that are characterized by rapid technological changes, frequent new product introductions and changing industry standards. If we do not develop platform enhancements based on technological innovation on a timely basis, our platform may become obsolete over time and our financial and competitive position may suffer. Our success will depend on several factors, including but not limited to our ability to: - correctly identify customer needs and preferences and predict future needs and preferences;- allocate our research and development funding to areas with higher growth prospects;- anticipate and respond to our competitors' development of new solutions, products, services and technological innovations;- innovate and develop new technologies and applications, and acquire or obtain rights to third-party technologies that may have valuable applications in the markets we serve;- successfully develop and commercialize new technologies and applications in a timely manner; and - convince customers to adopt new technologies and applications. The expenses or losses associated with unsuccessful platform innovation or expansion could adversely affect our business revenue growth and results of operations.

We provide retirement benefits to our employees as required by Swiss law by means of a pension fund that is maintained by a life insurance company. The life insurance company operates a pension plan for all of our employees as a defined benefit plan under International Accounting Standard ("IAS") 19, Employee Benefits ("IAS 19"). As of December 31, 2021, we reported an employee benefit obligation, before deduction of plan assets, of $17.9 million in accordance with IAS 19. The obligation represents our projected obligations towards current and future pensioners discounted at an annual rate of 0.40%. Under Swiss statutory rules and pursuant to our contract with the group life assurance provider, all risks including investment risk are fully covered. That said, no underfunding exists under Swiss law. The variance between Swiss statutory rules and IFRS is apparent in many Swiss companies, and the IFRS obligation of our pension plan does not necessarily reflect a true payment obligation under Swiss law because Swiss law allows us to maintain flexibility to adjust benefit levels under the plans and we could use this flexibility to mitigate any liability. For more information, see Note 22-"Post-employment benefits" to the audited consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report. However, should the Swiss statutory rules at any time require a determination that our pension plan is significantly underfunded, we could be obliged to make additional contributions to the pension plan in addition to our obligation to make regular contributions as defined in the pension plan regulation. If such risk materializes, this could have a material adverse effect on our financial position or results of operations.

Expedited, reliable shipping and delivery services and secure warehousing are essential to our operations. We rely on providers of transport services for reliable and secure point-to-point transport of our research and diagnostic products and for tracking of these shipments, and from time to time require warehousing for our products. Should a carrier encounter delivery performance issues such as loss, damage or destruction of any systems, it would be costly to replace such systems in a timely manner and such occurrences may damage our reputation, reduce demand for our SOPHiA platform and related solutions, products and services and increase costs and expenses to our business. In addition, any significant increase in shipping or warehousing rates could adversely affect our operating margins and results of operations. Similarly, strikes, severe weather, natural disasters, civil unrest and disturbances or other service interruptions affecting delivery or warehousing services we use would adversely affect our ability to process orders for our products on a timely basis. We rely on commercial courier delivery services to transport samples to our laboratory facility in a timely and cost-efficient manner and if these delivery services are disrupted, our business will be harmed. Disruptions in delivery service, whether due to labor disruptions, bad weather, natural disaster, civil unrest or disturbances, terrorist acts or threats or other reasons could adversely affect specimen integrity and our ability to process samples in a timely manner and to service our customers, and ultimately our reputation and our business. In addition, if we are unable to continue to obtain expedited delivery services on commercially reasonable terms, our operating results may be adversely affected.

We rely, and we expect that we will continue to rely, on third parties to assist in managing, monitoring and otherwise carrying out multimodal clinical studies of our SOPHiA platform and related solutions and products. For example, we rely on participating sites and their staff, such as clinical research assistants, to gather and enter data and on clinical research organizations and their staff to gather, enter and monitor data. As a result of our reliance on these third parties, we have less direct control over the conduct, timing and completion of these studies than we would otherwise have if we relied entirely upon our own staff. These third parties are not our employees and we have limited control over the amount of time and resources that they dedicate to our studies, but we nevertheless are responsible for ensuring that each of our clinical studies is conducted in accordance with applicable protocol, legal, regulatory and scientific standards. In addition, communications with outside parties can also be challenging, potentially leading to mistakes as well as difficulties in coordinating activities. Outside parties may have staffing difficulties, fail to comply with contractual obligations, experience regulatory compliance issues, undergo changes in priorities or become financially distressed, or form relationships with other entities, some of which may be our competitors. If these third parties do not successfully carry out their duties under their agreements, or if the quality or accuracy of the data they obtain is compromised, or if they fail to comply with study protocols or meet expected deadlines, the multimodal clinical studies of our SOPHiA platform and related solutions and products may fail to generate data necessary to support further development of our platform in a particular disease area or to support potential regulatory submissions and commercial activities and could subject us to liability claims. If third parties fail to comply with applicable regulatory requirements, the data generated in the multimodal clinical studies may be unreliable and these studies may be extended, delayed, suspended or terminated and we could be subject to liability claims. We compete with many other companies for the resources of these third parties. These third parties may have contractual relationships with other entities, some of which may be our competitors, which may draw time and resources away from our studies. If any of our relationships with these third parties terminate, we may not be able to enter into alternative arrangements or to do so on commercially reasonable terms. As a result, delays may occur in our studies, which can materially impact our ability to meet our desired development, regulatory and commercialization timelines. There can be no assurance that we will not encounter challenges or delays in the future or that these delays or challenges will not have a material adverse impact on our business, results of operations, financial condition and prospects.

We rely, and expect that we will continue to rely, on third parties for the manufacturing and supply of our products offered with our SOPHiA platform, and such reliance on third-party manufacturers may expose us to different risks than if we were to manufacture products ourselves. If our agreements with these third parties expire or are terminated, there can be no assurance that we would be able to negotiate new agreements with them or other third parties on equally favorable terms as the current agreements, or at all. For example, we rely on our manufacturing and supply agreements with multiple parties, including IDT, Twist, Qiagen GmbH ("Qiagen") and NEB, for the manufacture of our DNA enrichments kits, which we offer to our clients as part of "bundle" solutions together with our SOPHiA platform. Reliance on third-party providers exposes us to different risks than if we were to manufacture and supply products ourselves. If our third-party manufacturers fail to deliver the required commercial quantities of materials on a timely basis and at commercially reasonable prices, and we are unable to find one or more replacement manufacturers capable of production at a substantially equivalent cost in substantially equivalent volumes and quality on a timely basis, the continued commercialization of our products, the supply of our products to customers and the development of any future products will be delayed, limited or prevented, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Further, although we have auditing rights with all our manufacturing counterparties and we have the right under our agreements both with IDT and Twist to submit our own product design specifications, we do not have control over a manufacturer's compliance with applicable manufacturing standards and other laws and regulations, such as those related to environmental health and safety matters. Any failure to achieve and maintain compliance with these laws, regulations and standards could subject us to the risk that we may have to suspend the manufacturing of our products and that obtained regulatory clearance could be revoked, which would adversely affect our business and reputation. In addition, we have encountered and may in the future encounter quality issues with our products if our third-party manufacturers fail to deliver the required materials for, or components of, our products free of defects and contaminants and/or in conformity with applicable specifications, warranties and statutory or regulatory requirements. For example, in June 2021, we detected cross-contamination of index plates used in some of the DNA enrichment kits sold as part of our "bundle" solutions, which resulted from a defect in index plates supplied by one of our third-party manufacturers, and notified certain of our customers of this. Though in this instance, the cross-contamination to date has not led to detection rates inconsistent with our claimed limits of detection for the DNA enrichment kits or given rise to any pending or threatened claims, we cannot guarantee that quality issues resulting from one of our third-party manufacturer's failure to deliver compliant materials or components free of defects and contaminants will not lead to product recalls, marketing or promotional restrictions, litigation, customer loss or reputational harm or otherwise negatively affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Further, our manufacturing collaborators may be unable to successfully increase the manufacturing capacity for our products in a timely or cost-effective manner, or at all, as needed for our development efforts or, if our additional products are developed and approved, our commercialization efforts. Quality issues may also arise during scale-up activities, some of which may not be readily apparent to us or our collaborators. Establishing additional or replacement manufacturers could take a substantial amount of time and be expensive, which may result in interruptions in our operations and product delivery, negatively affect the quality and performance of our products or require that modifications be made to our products' designs. Even if we are able to find replacement manufacturers, we will be required to verify that the new manufacturer maintains facilities, procedures and operations that comply with our quality expectations and applicable regulatory requirements. If we are unable to find an adequate replacement or another acceptable solution in time, our research and development and commercial activities could be harmed.

We currently serve our customers from third-party data center hosting facilities located in the United States, Canada, Brazil, Europe, Turkey and Australia. Our operations depend, in part, on our third-party facility providers' ability to protect these facilities against damage or interruption from natural disasters, power or telecommunications failures, criminal acts, and similar events. In the event that our data center arrangements are terminated, or if there are any lapses of service or damage to a center, we could experience lengthy interruptions in providing our SOPHiA platform and related solutions, products and services as well as delays and additional expenses in making new arrangements. We designed our system infrastructure and procure and own or lease the computer hardware used for our services. Design and mechanical errors, spikes in usage volume and failure to follow system protocols and procedures could cause our systems to fail and result in interruptions in our SOPHiA platform and related services. Any interruptions or delays in our service, whether as a result of third-party error, our own error, natural disasters or security breaches could harm our relationships with our customers, reduce our revenue and increase our expenses. In such events, our insurance policies may not adequately compensate us for losses that we may incur but such events could subject us to liability and cause us to issue credits or cause customers to abandon our SOPHiA platform and related services. In addition, we currently use Microsoft Corporation ("Microsoft") and Microsoft Azure Services for a substantial portion of our computing, storage, data processing, networking and other services. In addition, our platform can be deployed onto other platforms, including Amazon Web Services ("AWS") or Google Cloud Platform ("Google Cloud"). Any significant disruption of, or interference with, our use of Microsoft Azure Services, AWS, Google Cloud or other similar cloud platforms, could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Cloud providers have broad discretion to change and interpret the terms of service and other policies with respect to us, and those actions may be unfavorable to our business operations. Cloud providers may also take actions beyond our control that could seriously harm our business, including discontinuing or limiting our access to one or more services, increasing pricing terms, terminating or seeking to terminate our contractual relationship altogether or altering how we are able to process data in a way that is unfavorable or costly to us. If our arrangements with cloud providers were terminated, we could experience interruptions on our platform and in our ability to make our content available to users, as well as delays and additional expenses in arranging for alternative cloud infrastructure services. Any transition to new cloud providers would be difficult to implement and would cause us to incur significant delays and expense. Additionally, we are vulnerable to service interruptions experienced by Microsoft Azure Services, Microsoft, AWS, Google Cloud and other providers, and we expect to experience interruptions, delays or outages in service availability in the future due to a variety of factors, including infrastructure changes, human, hardware or software errors, hosting disruptions and capacity constraints. Outages and capacity constraints could arise from a number of causes such as technical failures, natural disasters, fraud or security attacks. The level of service provided by these providers, or regular or prolonged interruptions in that service, could also affect the use of, and our users' satisfaction with, our products and services and could harm our business and reputation. In addition, hosting costs will increase as user engagement grows, which could harm our business if we are unable to grow our revenue faster than the cost of using these services or the services of other providers. Any of these factors could further reduce our revenue or subject us to liability, any of which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

A portion of our sales is made through independent global and regional distributors that are not under our control. We rely on distributors to grow and develop our customer base and anticipate customer needs, and any lack of such actions by our distributors may adversely affect our results of operations. If the business relationship with such distributor is terminated, whether through industry consolidation or otherwise, and we are unable to find a suitable replacement, our operations and operating results could be materially adversely affected. These independent distributors also generally represent products offered by several companies and are not subject to any minimum sales requirements or obligation to market our products to their customers. In turn, distributors could reduce their sales efforts for our products or choose to terminate their representation of us. They may also fail to perform their obligations under the agreements with us, including their obligations to ensure that end users of our SOPHiA platform are aware that informed consent is required from patients prior to obtaining access to our SOPHiA platform. Additionally, we rely on our distributors to provide accurate and timely sales reports in order for us to be able to generate financial reports that accurately represent distributor sales of our products during any given period. Any inaccuracies or untimely reports could adversely affect our ability to produce accurate and timely financial reports and recognize revenue.

Increasing efforts by governmental and third-party payors to cap or reduce healthcare costs may cause such organizations to limit both coverage and level of reimbursement for newly cleared, authorized or approved devices and medicines and, as a result, they may not cover or provide adequate payment for our platform and related solutions, products and services. Such efforts include legislation and regulations designed to control pharmaceutical and biological pricing, including price or patient reimbursement constraints, discounts, restrictions on certain product access and marketing cost disclosure and transparency measures, which are, in some cases, designed to encourage importation from other countries and bulk purchasing. In addition, such organizations may decide to divert or reallocate their available funding to other services, products or uses, for instance to limit the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, some countries require approval of the sale price of a product before it can be marketed or mandatory discounts or profit caps may be applied. In the United States and some foreign jurisdictions there have been, and continue to be, several legislative and regulatory changes and proposed reforms of the healthcare system to contain costs, improve quality, and expand access to care. There have been executive and judicial challenges to certain aspects of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as amended by the Healthcare and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (the "ACA"), as well as efforts to repeal, replace or alter the implementation of certain aspects of the ACA. It is unclear how any such efforts as well as the healthcare reform measures of the U.S. presidential administration will affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, other legislative changes have been proposed and adopted since the ACA was enacted. For example, the Budget Control Act of 2011, among other things, included reductions to CMS payments to providers of 2% per fiscal year, which went into effect on April 1, 2013 and, due to subsequent legislative amendments to the statute, will remain in effect through 2030 unless additional congressional action is taken, with the exception of a temporary suspension of the 2% cut in Medicare payments from May 1, 2020 through December 31, 2021. Additionally, the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, among other things, reduced CMS payments to several providers, including hospitals, and increased the statute of limitations period for the government to recover Medicare overpayments to providers from three to five years. Further, we expect that additional state and federal healthcare reform measures will be adopted in the future. Because of that, we expect to experience pricing pressures on our SOPHiA platform and related solutions, products and services due to the trend toward value-based pricing and coverage, the increasing influence of health maintenance organizations and legislative changes. In an effort to reduce costs, many hospitals in the United States have become members of GPOs and Integrated Delivery Networks (the "IDNs"), which negotiate pricing arrangements with medical device companies and distributors and then offer these negotiated prices to affiliated hospitals and other members. GPOs and IDNs typically award contracts on a category-by-category basis through a competitive bidding process. Due to the highly competitive nature of the GPO and IDN contracting processes, we may not be able to obtain and maintain contract positions with major GPOs and IDNs. Furthermore, the increasing leverage of organized buying groups may reduce market prices for our SOPHiA platform and related solutions, products and services, thereby reducing our revenue and margins. We expect that a significant portion of our revenue will be derived from sales to customers for research and development applications, including for CROs. The demand for our SOPHiA platform and related solutions, products and services will depend in part upon the research and development budgets of these customers, which are impacted by factors beyond our control. In addition, academic, governmental and other research institutions that fund research and development activities may be subject to stringent budgetary constraints that could results in spending reductions, reduced allocations or budget cutbacks, which could jeopardize the ability of these customers to purchase our products.

The availability and extent of reimbursement by governmental and private payors is essential for most patients to be able to afford our current and future platforms, solutions, products and services, if approved for IVD use. In addition, because our SOPHiA platform and related solutions, products and services represent new approaches to the research, diagnosis, detection and treatment of diseases, we cannot accurately estimate how they would be priced, whether reimbursement could be obtained or any potential revenue generated. Sales of our SOPHiA platform and related solutions, products and services, if approved for IVD use, may depend substantially on the extent to which they are covered by health maintenance, managed care and similar healthcare management organizations, or reimbursed by government health administration authorities, private health coverage insurers and other third-party payors. If reimbursement is not available, or is available only to limited levels, we may not be able to successfully commercialize our SOPHiA platform and related solutions, products and services. Even if coverage is provided, the available reimbursement amount may not be high enough to allow us to establish or maintain pricing sufficient to realize an adequate return on our research and development and sales and marketing costs. Coverage and reimbursement are ever changing, and we are not in control of how our competitors' coverage and pricing strategies are established. Some of our competitors have widespread brand recognition and substantially greater financial and technical resources and development, production and marketing capabilities than we do. Others may develop lower-priced, less complex tests that payors and healthcare professionals could view as functionally equivalent to our products, which could force us to lower the list price of our tests and impact our operating margins and our ability to achieve and maintain profitability. Payors may compare our products to our competitors and utilize them as precedents, which may impact our coverage and reimbursement. In addition, technological innovations that result in the creation of enhanced diagnostic tools that are more effective than ours may enable other clinical laboratories, hospitals, medical personnel or medical providers to provide specialized diagnostic tests similar to ours in a more patient-friendly, efficient or cost-effective manner than is currently possible. In the United States, many significant decisions about reimbursement for new diagnostics and medicines are made by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services ("CMS"), which decides whether and to what extent a new diagnostic or medicine will be covered and reimbursed under Medicare, although it frequently delegates this authority to local Medicare Administrative Contractors ("MACs"). Private payors tend to follow Medicare to a substantial degree. It is difficult to predict what CMS will decide with respect to reimbursement for novel platforms, solutions, products and services such as ours. Outside the United States, the reimbursement process and timelines vary significantly. Certain countries, including a number of member states of the EU, set prices and make reimbursement decisions for diagnostics and pharmaceutical products, or medicinal products, as they are commonly referred to in the EU, with limited participation from the marketing authorization or CE mark holders, or may take decisions that are unfavorable to the authorization or CE mark holder where they have participated in the process. There can be no assurance that we can achieve acceptable prices and reimbursement decisions.

In order to eventually market any of our current or future products and services in any particular jurisdiction, we must establish and comply with numerous and varying regulatory requirements on a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction basis regarding quality, safety, performance and efficacy. In addition, regulatory clearance, authorization or approval in one country does not guarantee regulatory clearance, authorization or approval in any other country. For example, the performance characteristics of our products and services may need to be validated separately in specific ethnic and genetic populations. Approval processes vary among countries and can involve additional product testing and validation and additional administrative review periods. Seeking regulatory clearance, authorization or approval could result in difficulties and costs. Regulatory requirements and ethical approval obligations can vary widely from country to country and could delay or prevent the introduction of our products and services in those countries. We have no experience in obtaining regulatory clearance, authorization or approval in international markets. If we fail to comply with regulatory requirements in international markets or to obtain and maintain required regulatory clearances, authorizations or approvals in international markets, or if those approvals are delayed, our target market will be reduced and our ability to realize the full market potential of our products and services will be unrealized.

CLIA is a federal law that regulates clinical laboratories that perform testing on specimens derived from humans for the purpose of providing information for the diagnosis, prevention, or treatment of disease, or impairment of, or the assessment of the health of, human beings. CLIA regulations require, among other things, clinical laboratories to obtain a certificate and mandate specific standards in the areas of personnel qualifications, administration, participation in proficiency testing, test management, and quality assurance. In addition to federal certification requirements of laboratories under CLIA, CLIA provides that states may adopt laboratory regulations and licensure requirements that are more stringent than those under federal law. A number of states have implemented their own licensure and more stringent laboratory regulatory requirements. Such laws, among other things, establish standards for the day-to-day operation of a clinical laboratory, including the training and skills required of personnel and quality control. Failure to comply with CLIA and applicable state clinical laboratory licensure requirements may result in a range of enforcement actions, including license suspension, limitation, or revocation, directed plan of action, onsite monitoring, civil monetary penalties, and criminal sanctions as well as significant adverse publicity. Based on our current scope of operations, we do not currently operate a CLIA-certified laboratory and our customers are responsible for their own CLIA certification. However, if we begin to provide diagnostic products in the United States, we will become subject to such requirements.

Our operations may subject us to health care regulation and enforcement by both the federal government and the states and foreign jurisdictions in which we conduct our business. Various federal and state laws, as well as the laws of foreign countries, prohibit payments to induce the referral, purchase, order or use of healthcare products or services and require medical device companies to limit, prevent, and/or monitor and report certain payments to third-party payors, healthcare professionals and other individuals. These healthcare fraud and abuse anti-kickback, public reporting and aggregate spend laws affect our sales, marketing and other promotional activities by limiting the kinds of financial arrangements, including sales programs, we may have with providers, hospitals, medical personnel or other potential purchasers or users, including patients, of medical devices and services. They also impose additional administrative and compliance burdens on us. In particular, these laws influence, among other things, how we structure our sales offerings, including discount practices, customer support, education and training programs, and physician consulting and other service arrangements. These laws prohibit certain marketing initiatives that are commonplace in other industries. If we were to offer or pay inappropriate inducements for the purchase, order or use of our SOPHiA platform and related solutions, products and services or our services, or our arrangements are perceived as inappropriate inducements, we could be subject to claims under various healthcare fraud and abuse laws. Restrictions under applicable U.S. federal and state healthcare laws and regulations include the following: - the federal Anti-Kickback Statute (the "AKS"), which prohibits, among other things, persons or entities from soliciting, receiving, offering or providing remuneration, directly or indirectly, overtly or covertly, in cash or in kind, in return for, or to induce, either the referral of an individual for, or the purchase, lease, order or recommendation of, any good, facility, item or services for which payment may be made under a federal healthcare program such as the Medicare and Medicaid programs;- the federal physician self-referral prohibition, commonly known as the Stark Law, which prohibits physicians from referring Medicare or Medicaid patients to providers of "designated health services" with whom the physician or a member of the physician's immediate family has an ownership interest or compensation arrangements, unless a statutory or regulatory exception applies;- the federal Eliminating Kickbacks in Recovery Act of 2018 (the "EKRA") prohibits payments for referrals to recovery homes, clinical treatment facilities, and laboratories. EKRA's reach extends beyond federal health care programs to include private insurance (i.e., it is an "all payor" statute). The full scope of such law is uncertain and is subject to a variety of interpretations;- HIPAA, which established additional federal civil and criminal liability for, among other things, knowingly and willfully executing a scheme to defraud any healthcare benefit program or making false statements in connection with the delivery of or payment for healthcare benefits, items or services;- HIPAA, as amended by HITECH and its implementing regulations, which imposes certain requirements relating to the privacy, security and transmission of individually identifiable health information;- federal false claims and civil monetary penalties laws, which prohibit, among other things, individuals or entities from knowingly presenting, or causing to be presented, false or fraudulent claims for payment to the federal government;- the federal Physician Payments Sunshine Act requirements under the ACA, which require certain manufacturers of drugs, devices, biologics and medical supplies to report to CMS information related to payments and other transfers of value made to or at the request of physicians (defined to include doctors, dentists, optometrists, podiatrists and chiropractors) and teaching hospitals, and certain ownership and investment interests held by physicians and their immediate family members. Beginning in 2022, applicable manufacturers also will be required to report such information regarding its payments and other transfers of value to physician assistants, nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists, anesthesiologist assistants, certified registered nurse anesthetists and certified nurse midwives during the previous year; and - state law equivalents of each of the above federal laws, such as anti-kickback and false claims laws, which may apply to items or services reimbursed by any third-party payor, including commercial insurers. Further, the ACA, among other things, amended the intent requirement of the federal AKS and certain criminal healthcare fraud statutes. Where the intent requirement has been lowered, a person or entity no longer needs to have actual knowledge of this statute or specific intent to violate it in order to have committed a violation. In addition, the government may now assert that a claim including items or services resulting from a violation of the federal AKS constitutes a false or fraudulent claim for purposes of the false claims statutes. Moreover, these laws may change significantly and adversely in the future. Any action brought against us for violation of these laws or regulations, even if we successfully defend against it, could cause us to incur significant legal expenses and divert our management's attention from the operation of our business. If our operations are found to be in violation of any of these laws and regulations, we may be subject to any applicable penalty associated with the violation, including, among others, significant administrative, civil and criminal penalties, damages, fines, disgorgement, imprisonment, integrity oversight and reporting obligations, and exclusion from participation in government-funded healthcare programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Additionally, we could be required to refund payments received by us, and we could be required to curtail or cease our operations. Any of the foregoing consequences could seriously harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We are subject to standard corporate income taxation. The standard effective corporate tax rates in Saint-Sulpice, Canton of Vaud, Switzerland, can change from time to time. However, we expect that the standard combined (federal, cantonal, communal) effective corporate income tax rate, except for dividend income for which we could claim a participation exemption, for 2022 in Saint-Sulpice will be approximately 13%. We are also subject to corporate income taxation in other jurisdictions in which currently operate, including France, the United States, the UK, Brazil and Australia. In addition, in view of the ongoing implementation of the OECD G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Project and the EU anti-avoidance tax package, the existing transfer pricing system and our intercompany relationships could be challenged by the competent tax authorities, resulting in additional taxes, interest and penalties in case of profit add-backs, non-deductible expenses or objections to the transfer pricing documentation. A focus area is the taxation and allocation of profits generated from intangibles where the DEMPE (Development, Enhancement, Maintenance, Protection and Exploitation) functions will become more relevant compared to the pure bearing of costs. This may impact the taxation of our group profits and may impact our effective tax rate. These and other changes in tax laws or the interpretation of tax laws in Switzerland, France, the United States, the UK, Brazil, Australia and other jurisdictions in which we currently operate or will operate in the future, could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition.

We are subject to numerous state, federal and foreign laws and regulations that govern the collection, transmission, storage, dissemination, use, privacy, confidentiality, security, availability, integrity and processing of individually identifiable information. The legislative and regulatory landscape for privacy and data protection continues to evolve in jurisdictions worldwide, and there has been an increasing focus on privacy and data protection issues with the potential to affect our business. Failure to comply with any of these laws and regulations could result in enforcement actions against us, including fines, imprisonment of company officials, public censure, claims for damages by affected individuals, damage to our reputation and loss of goodwill, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business. There is ongoing concern from privacy advocates, regulators and others regarding data privacy and security issues, and the number of jurisdictions with data privacy and security laws has been increasing. Also, there are ongoing public policy debates regarding whether the standards for de-identification, anonymization or pseudonymization of health information are sufficient, and whether the risk of re-identification is sufficiently small, to adequately protect patient privacy. In particular, there are numerous U.S. federal and state laws and regulations related to the privacy and security of personal information. These laws and regulations include HIPAA, which establishes a set of national privacy and security standards for the protection of protected health information ("PHI") by health plans, healthcare clearinghouses and certain healthcare providers, referred to as covered entities, and the business associates with whom such covered entities contract for services as well as their covered subcontractors. HIPAA requires covered entities and business associates to develop and maintain policies and procedures with respect to PHI that is used or disclosed, including the adoption of administrative, physical and technical safeguards to protect such information and ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of electronic PHI. For instance, we offer private cloud-based software to help medical personnel and laboratories more efficiently use our products. The software maintains security safeguards that are designed to be consistent with HIPAA, but we cannot guarantee that these safeguards will not fail or that they will not be deemed inadequate in the future. In addition, we could be subject to periodic audits for compliance with the HIPAA Privacy and Security Standards by the HHS and our customers. HIPAA also implemented the use of standard transaction code sets and standard identifiers that covered entities must use when submitting or receiving certain electronic healthcare transactions, including activities associated with the billing and collection of healthcare claims. The United States Office of Civil Rights may impose penalties for HIPAA violations. Penalties will vary significantly depending on factors such as the date of the violation, whether the covered entity knew or should have known of the failure to comply, or whether the covered entity's failure to comply was due to willful neglect. These penalties include civil monetary penalties per violation, up to an annual cap. However, a single breach incident can result in violations of multiple standards. A person who knowingly obtains or discloses individually identifiable health information in violation of HIPAA may face a criminal penalty and imprisonment up to one year. The criminal penalties are greater and up to five years' imprisonment if the wrongful conduct involves false pretenses, and even higher and up to 10 years' imprisonment if the wrongful conduct involves the intent to sell, transfer or use identifiable health information for commercial advantage, personal gain or malicious harm. HIPAA also authorizes state attorneys general to file suit on behalf of their residents. Courts may award damages, costs and attorneys' fees related to violations of HIPAA in such cases. While HIPAA does not create a private right of action allowing individuals to sue us in civil court for violations of HIPAA, its standards have been used as the basis for duty of care in state civil suits such as those for negligence or recklessness in the misuse or breach of PHI. Furthermore, in the event of a breach as defined by HIPAA, the covered entity has specific reporting requirements under HIPAA. In the event of a significant breach, the reporting requirements could include notification to the general public. Enforcement activity can result in reputational harm, and responses to such enforcement activity can consume significant internal resources. Additionally, if we are unable to properly protect the privacy and security of PHI, we could be found to have breached our contracts. Determining whether PHI has been handled in compliance with applicable privacy standards and our contractual obligations can be complex, and we cannot be sure how these regulations will be interpreted, enforced or applied to our operations. In addition, many states in which we operate have laws that protect the privacy and security of sensitive and personal information. Certain state laws may be more stringent or broader in scope, or offer greater rights to individuals, with respect to sensitive and personal information than federal, international or other state laws, and such laws may differ from each other, which may complicate compliance efforts. For example, the CCPA, among other things, requires covered companies to provide new disclosures to California consumers and provide such consumers new data protection and privacy rights, including the ability to opt out of certain sales of personal information and imposes new operational requirements for covered businesses. The CCPA provides for civil penalties for violations, as well as a private right of action for certain data breaches that result in the loss of personal information. This private right of action may increase the likelihood of, and risks associated with, data breach litigation. On November 3, 2020, California voters approved a new privacy law, the California Privacy Rights Act (the "CPRA"), which significantly modifies the CCPA, including by expanding consumers' rights with respect to certain personal information and creating a new state agency to oversee implementation and enforcement efforts. Many of the CPRA's provisions will become effective on January 1, 2023. In addition, new legislation or constitutional amendments proposed or enacted in various states impose, or have the potential to impose, additional obligations on companies that collect, store, use, retain, disclose, transfer and otherwise process confidential, sensitive and personal information, and will continue to shape the data privacy environment nationally. For example, Virginia enacted the Consumer Data Privacy Act (the "CDPA"), which has general similarities to the CPRA and goes into effect on January 1, 2023. State laws are changing rapidly and there is discussion in the U.S. Congress of a new federal data protection and privacy law to which we would become subject if it is enacted. All of these evolving compliance and operational requirements impose significant costs that are likely to increase over time, may require us to modify our data processing practices and policies, divert resources from other initiatives and projects, and could restrict the way products and services involving data are offered, all of which may have a material and adverse impact on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Outside of the United States, laws, regulations and standards in many jurisdictions, including data localization and storage requirements, apply broadly to the collection, use, retention, security, disclosure, transfer and other processing of personal information, which impose significant compliance obligations. For example, in the EU and the European Economic Area (the "EEA"), the collection, use and other processing of personal data, is governed by the GDPR, which became effective in May 2018. The GDPR greatly increased the European Commission's jurisdictional reach of its laws and imposed more stringent data privacy and security requirements on companies in relation to the processing of personal data of EU data subjects, including, for example, requirements to establish a legal basis for processing, higher standards for obtaining consent from individuals to process their personal data, including sensitive data such as health or genomic information, more robust disclosures to individuals and a strengthened individual data rights regime, requirements to implement safeguards to protect the security and confidentiality of personal data that requires the adoption of administrative, physical and technical safeguards, shortened timelines for data breach notifications to appropriate data protection authorities or data subjects, limitations on retention and secondary use of information, increased requirements pertaining to health data and additional obligations when we contract third-party processors in connection with the processing of the personal data. EU and EEA member states are tasked under the GDPR to enact, and have enacted, certain implementing legislation that adds to and/or further interprets the GDPR requirements and potentially extends our obligations and potential liability for failing to meet such obligations. The GDPR, together with national legislation, regulations and guidelines of the EU and EEA member states governing the processing of personal data, impose strict obligations and restrictions on the ability to collect, use, retain, protect, disclose, transfer and otherwise process personal data. In particular, the GDPR includes obligations and restrictions concerning the consent and rights of individuals to whom the personal data relates, the transfer of personal data out of the EEA, security breach notifications and the security and confidentiality of personal data. The GDPR authorizes fines for certain violations of up to 4% of global annual revenue or €20 million, whichever is greater, and other administrative penalties. Further, the exit of the UK from the EU, often referred to as Brexit, has created uncertainty with regard to data protection regulation in the UK. The UK has transposed the GDPR into domestic law, with its version of the GDPR that took effect on January 1, 2021, which could expose us to two parallel regimes, each of which potentially authorizes similar fines for certain violations. In Switzerland, the collection and processing of personal data is governed by the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (the "FADP"). The revised FADP is expected to enter into force in 2022. The FADP provides for data protection principles that are substantially similar to those applied under the GDPR, and the FADP also applies to collection and processing of personal data outside of Switzerland. While the current FADP authorizes certain criminal fines of up to CHF 10,000, the revised FADP will authorize criminal fines for certain violations of up to CHF 250,000. Such fines are mainly imposed upon the individual responsible for the violation. However, the revised FADP also authorizes fines of up to CHF 50,000 on the responsible data controller or processor. Fines under the FADP may be imposed in addition to fines under other data protection regimes. For more information on the FADP, see "Item 4. Information the Company-B. Business Overview-Government Regulation-Data Privacy and Security-General Data Protection Regulation and Other Foreign Laws and Regulations." Although there are legal mechanisms to allow for the transfer of personal data from the EEA, Switzerland and the UK to the United States, uncertainty remains about such mechanisms. For example, legal challenges in the EU and EEA to the mechanisms that allow companies to transfer personal data from the EU and EEA to the United States could result in further limitations on the ability to transfer personal data across borders, particularly if governments are unable or unwilling to reach new or maintain existing agreements that support cross-border data transfers. Specifically, on July 16, 2020, in a case known as Schrems II, the Court of Justice of the European Union, invalidated the European Commission's Decision 2016/1250 on the adequacy of the protection provided by the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield. Although we rely on the primary alternatives to the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield, namely, the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses, for cross-border data transfers from the EU to the United States and other jurisdictions, Schrems II also raised questions about whether the Standard Contractual Clauses can lawfully be used for such data transfers. Use of the Standard Contractual Clauses must now be assessed on a case-by-case basis taking into account the legal regime applicable in the destination country, in particular regarding applicable surveillance laws and relevant rights of individuals with respect to the transferred data. At present, there are few, if any, viable alternatives to the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield and the Standard Contractual Clauses. Inability to transfer personal data from the EU, EEA, Switzerland or the UK to the United States may restrict our research and development activities in these territories and limit our ability to offer products and services we may develop. Similar restrictions of cross-border data transfer apply to Switzerland, where the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (the "FDPIC") considers that the CH-U.S. Privacy Shield does not provide an adequate level of data protection. We expect that there will continue to be new proposed laws and regulations concerning data privacy and security, and we cannot yet determine the impact such future laws, regulations and standards may have on our business. New laws, amendments to or reinterpretations of existing laws, regulations, standards and other obligations may require us to incur additional costs and restrict our business operations. Because the interpretation and application of health-related and data protection laws, regulations, standards and other obligations are still uncertain, and often contradictory and in flux, it is possible that the scope and requirements of these laws may be interpreted and applied in a manner that is inconsistent with our practices and our efforts to comply with the evolving data protection rules may be unsuccessful. If so, this could result in government-imposed fines or orders requiring that we change our practices, which could adversely affect our business. In addition, these privacy regulations may differ from country to country, and may vary based on whether testing is performed in the United States or in the local country, and our operations or business practices may not comply with these regulations in each country. In addition to the possibility of fines, sanctions, lawsuits, regulatory investigations, public censure, other claims and penalties, and significant costs for remediation and damage to our reputation, we could be materially and adversely affected if legislation or regulations are expanded to require changes in our data processing practices and policies or if governing jurisdictions interpret or implement their legislation or regulations in ways that negatively impact our business. Complying with these various laws could cause us to incur substantial costs or require us to change our business practices and compliance procedures in a manner adverse to our business. Any inability to adequately address data privacy or security-related concerns, even if unfounded, or to comply with applicable laws, regulations, standards and other obligations relating to data privacy and security, could result in additional cost and liability to us, harm our reputation and brand, damage our relationships with customers and have a material and adverse impact on our business.

Our commercial success depends, in part, on market acceptance of our SOPHiA platform and our products and services. We cannot predict how quickly, if at all, our SOPHiA platform and related solutions, products and services will attain significant market acceptance or, if accepted, how frequently they will be used. These constituents must believe that our SOPHiA platform and related solutions, products and services offer benefits over other available alternatives. The degree of market acceptance of our SOPHiA platform and related solutions, products and services depends on a number of factors, including: - whether there is adequate utilization of our SOPHiA platform and related solutions, products and services based on their potential and perceived advantages over those of our competitors;- the safety, accuracy and ease of use of our SOPHiA platform and related solutions, products and services relative to those currently on the market;- our ability to develop, commercialize and obtain regulatory clearance or approval for in vitro device ("IVD") products for diagnostic use and our compliance with the FDA's "Distribution of In Vitro Diagnostic Products Labeled for Research Use Only or Investigational Use Only" (the "RUO Guidance") and other laws and regulations governing Research Use Only ("RUO") and IVD products in the United States, the European Union (the "EU") and other geographies;- the clinical flexibility, operational versatility and technology agnostic nature of our SOPHiA platform and related solutions, products and services;- the prices at which we and our distributors offer our SOPHiA platform and related solutions, products and services;- the effectiveness of our sales and marketing efforts;- our ability to provide incremental data that show the clinical benefits and cost-effectiveness, and operational benefits, of our SOPHiA platform and related solutions, products and services;- our ability to build and maintain robust data sets with respect to patient populations, both in geographic regions that we have historically served and in geographic regions that we may seek to enter or further penetrate in the future;- the coverage and reimbursement acceptance of our products and services;- pricing pressure, including from group purchasing organizations ("GPOs"), seeking to obtain discounts on our SOPHiA platform and related solutions, products and services based on the collective bargaining power of the GPO members;- negative publicity regarding our or our competitors' platforms, products and services; and - the accuracy of our SOPHiA platform and related solutions, products and services relative to those of our competitors. Additionally, even if our SOPHiA platform and related solutions, products and services achieve widespread market acceptance, they may not maintain that market acceptance over time if more cost-effective or more favorably received platforms, products, services or technologies are introduced. Failure to achieve or maintain market acceptance and/or market share would limit our ability to generate revenue. In addition, our customer base includes hospitals, reference and specialty laboratories, and biopharmaceutical companies. In the years ended December 31, 2021 and December 31, 2020, most of our revenue came from sales to our customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa ("EMEA"). Our success will depend on our ability to increase our market penetration among these customers, including our ability to provide additional applications of our platform and additional products and services to our existing customers, and expand our customer base across various markets and geographies by developing and marketing new applications of our data analytics platform and new solutions, products and services. In particular, we intend to focus our efforts on geographic and biopharma expansion, for example by capitalizing on increasing NGS testing and expanding our offerings to biopharmaceutical companies with new and improved pre- and post-market solutions. As we continue to scale our business, we may find that certain applications of our SOPHiA platform, certain of our solutions, products and services, certain customers or certain markets may require a dedicated sales force or sales personnel with different experience than those we currently employ. For instance, we have a dedicated BioPharma Business Development and Operations team, focusing on expanding our collaborations with biopharmaceutical companies, both advanced and early stage. Identifying, recruiting and training additional qualified personnel would require significant time, expense and attention. There can be no assurance that we will be able to further penetrate our existing markets, that our existing markets will be able to sustain our current and future solutions, products and services offerings and that we will be able to expand into new markets. Any failure to increase penetration in our existing markets or expand into new ones would adversely affect our revenues and results of operations.

We have established relationships with leading thought leaders. If these key opinion leaders determine that our SOPHiA platform and related solutions, products and services are not accurate or that alternative technologies, products and services are more accurate or more cost-effective, or if we fail to establish new relationships with key opinion leaders in different markets, geographies and among various stakeholders, we may see lower demand for our SOPHiA platform and related solutions, products and services, which would limit our revenue growth and our ability to achieve profitability. The publication of clinical data using our products in peer-reviewed journals is also crucial to our success. For instance, as of December 31, 2021, our SOPHiA platform and related solutions, products and services have been utilized in clinical trials and research projects discussed in more than 330 peer-reviewed publications. We are unable to control when, if ever, results of current or future trials and projects are published, which may delay or limit adoption of our SOPHiA platform and related solutions, products and services. Such peer-reviewed publications may be limited by many factors, including delays in the completion of, poor design of, or lack of compelling data from, clinical studies, as well as delays in the review, acceptance and publication process. If our SOPHiA platform and related solutions, products and services do not receive sufficient favorable exposure in peer-reviewed publications, the rate of adoption of our SOPHiA platform and related solutions, products and services among medical personnel and positive reimbursement coverage determinations for them could be adversely affected.

To ensure adequate inventory supply, we must forecast inventory needs and assemble products related to our SOPHiA platform and services based on our estimates of future demand. Our ability to accurately forecast demand could be negatively affected by various factors, including our failure to accurately manage our expansion strategy, product introductions by competitors, change in customer demand, changes in customer acceptance, changes in general market conditions or regulatory matters and weakening of economic conditions or consumer confidence in future economic conditions. Inventory levels in excess of customer demand may result in inventory write-downs or write-offs, which would adversely affect our gross margin and impair the strength of our brand. Conversely, if we underestimate customer demand for our SOPHiA platform and related solutions, products and services, our supply chain, manufacturing collaborators and/or internal manufacturing team may not be able to deliver components to meet our requirements, which could damage our reputation, sales growth and customer relationships. In addition, if we experience a significant increase in demand, additional supplies of raw materials or additional manufacturing capacity may not be available when required on terms that are acceptable to us, if at all, or suppliers may not be able to allocate sufficient capacity in order to meet our increased requirements, which could adversely affect our business, reputation and results of operations.